Forza Fans Debate Whether Horizon 5's Map Is More 'Boring' Than Horizon 4

Forza Horizon 4's map flowed better. It's one thing to have a more interesting location on paper but in practice, FH5's map gains nothing by being bigger.

The whole game is more boring than FH4, and in fact 4 was worse than 3. For me FH3 was the peak. Yes 5 looks amazing, but you spend half your time in menus looking at what criteria you have to fulfill to earn this and that.

FH5 was my first game in that series so I can't say if it's better or not, but I will say it needs more urban and city areas. Still very enjoyable though and I've yet to play a car game like it.

Heres hoping they do Japan next, would love to race through akihabara, areas with cherry blossom trees and snowy hokkaido

I actually found Forza Horizon 4 to be boring. Loving the variety that FH5’s map brings to the table.

Followed the series since day one.
Will go FH5 just, I like the biome diversity
and the shear volume of graphical finesse.

Not only do I prefer the FH4 map, but I feel the race courses are better designed in 4 as well... they feel a bit more exciting and memorable than most of the courses in 5 (with a couple of exceptions).

Got months and months of enjoyment out of 4, but 5 felt dead within a couple of weeks.

Even my wife, who doesn't really play, noticed 5 seemed lifeless compared to 4 (and she's Mexican, so was looking forward to 5!).

The map is the only thing 5 does better than 4.

A problem with them both is the attempt to portray an entire country in such a small space which is both immersion breaking and ludicrous. Attempting to make us believe that the map in FH4 somehow stretched from Edinburgh to the Cotswolds via the M1 was absurd.

They should have shrank both of them down to an area in both countries, in the case of FH4 this should have either done the Lake District between the M6 and the Irish Sea or the Peak District between Chesterfield (which is ironically about the size of the much-shrunken Edinburgh) and Bakewell. Either of these would have been great facsimiles in the same way we had a facsimile of Colorado in the original and the Cote de Azure in number 2.

As for FH5 they should have just done the Jalisco area of Mexico between Guadalajara and the Pacific.

This is why we keep telling them Hokkaido would make such a great location: it’s an island and a smaller part of a larger country. They don’t need to recreate a terrible facsimile of Japan for the whole game; just a portion of it.

FH5 was weird. Plenty of biomes but it was hard to get immersed in any of them because you’re always like a minute away from something else. They hyped up the jungle for example but in the game it felt tiny and had perfect tarmac roads running through it. I found it a bit bizarre tbh but it was a fun game while it lasted.

you know, I was just about to say I didn't understand why we were even talking about a perfectly fun game that came out almost ten months ago, but then I realized that almost nothing has come out SINCE then.in fact, if you aren't into Elden Ring, nothing big HAS come out since then. might that not be the real problem? maybe?

While FH1 was my favorite game, my favorite maps are a coin flip between 2 and 3. I enjoyed the views in FH2, but really enjoyed the biomes in 3. I liked the seasonal changes in FH4, but I didn’t feel it was as exciting as any of the other games in the series.

I don't know how anyone can think the map in FH4 is better than FH5, especially if you're from the UK. It's an absolutely pathetic representation of the UK, which is even more bonkers when you factor in that the developers are UK based. No excuses for how bad it is.

FH5's map just feels a lot more diverse to me.

Its nice to see others discussing this. At first I was all over FH5, but it lasted maybe three months, where as id been playing fh4 for ages.
I intend to return to fh4, but not fh5 once ive finished the hotwheels dlc. Shame, but fh5 is missing something....

There is a drasticly lower amount of traffic on the roads in FH5. I liked the feel of the different vehicles more in 4 as well. Maybe they are a bit more realistic in FH5 but some cars just feel very clunky. Both games are great and hopefully 6 is a ways off so we can get a chance to miss it. Also a little slower with the cars you get....i don't want to grind forever but there's less sense of accomplishment this time around.

I voted for 4 purely because its set in the UK with many areas really capturing the UK's aesthetic and driving - I live in the Cotswolds.

FH5's map has more diversity to it and of course a lot more elevation too. We don't get the extremes of Desert and Rainforests so it does add more diverse Biomes too. The only thing it doesn't have is that 'real life' experience that I can compare to as I have driven around the UK a lot, but I have never been to Mexico or really know what that Country looks like.

I guess its a bit like wanting to try out famous Race tracks - Like Silverstone, Nurburgring etc - especially those you may of driven more so than the ones designed purely for the game - like Maple Valley for example in Forza. Being able to compare the 'in-game' look and feel of racing around the UK, Silverstone, Nurburgring with your own 'real life' experiences adds something extra so to me, FH4 is a more memorable and my preferred map.

If FH4 had the 'same' map as FH5 - just set in the UK instead, I'm sure it would beat FH4's map in my opinion because I have more of an emotional connection to the setting.

This entire discussion only strengthens the argument that Forza Horizon needs to take a break for a while. @Kezelpaso was right on the money the other day: give Horizon a rest for a while and bring back Project Gotham Racing. Even if they focused on just one city to start with, that would be a nice change from Playground Games' usual maps.

Yeah I do have to agree that the roads in Forza Horizon 5 are just too setup around long high speed cornering. I mean I imagine it was to make it so hypercars feel easier to drive and enjoy, but that kinda shows off the problem with trying to design a game around them, you wind up compromising the roads for slower cars, and everything gets kinda boring and there isn't much to the cornering.

Honestly, I think this issue is why I always thought so highly of Test Drive Unlimited and it's sequel. They managed to create an open world where all the roads felt like real roads. You had all sorts of winding, twisty slower roads which made it a blast to just cruise around in with more average sports cars. There was big open highways for you to open up the fastest cars in as well, so there was something for anything.

After the disappointment called Hot Wheels on FH5 i went back to FH4 and it felt like a breath of fresh air...I don't intend to go back to FH5 untill the next expansion wich hopefully isn't Lego or I might just skip ahead till FH6.PS:I know FH4 has a Lego expansion but I chose not to install it and picked the beautifull treasure island instead.

@JohnDoe1978 Yeah I am sick and tired of the toy brand expansions by now. Hot Wheels is kinda fun for F-Zero style racing with hypercars, but that's about it. Generally speaking I just sorta like to build cars and cruise around with them, so the island DLC's have been the only ones I really liked, because at least they give me a new environment to drive around in and explore. When it's got a Hot Wheels or Lego theme, I just can't be bothered, it's just too detached from reality.

I love them all, but for me, they peaked at 3.

Having missed out on the late life of the Xbox 360 (mine RROD’d) my confidence in the hardware quality kept me away from the world of Xbox through the years.

FH5 was my hook back to Xbox and the price of the Series S as well. That all being said, I found FH5 exciting to look at since it was all new to me and the “next generation” levels of detail.

I also have been playing through FH4 and I do admit there’s more variety but feels smaller to me.

I have a Series X now but have yet to source a copy of FH3. I really want to try it out.

Personally I think there are definitely flaws and "something missing" in FH5, but the map isn't really it. It's not perfect, but I found it far more engaging and satisfying than 4, which was ok, but I fell off it quickly. FH5 definitely kept me more hooked. It was just "fun" doing "stuff" in the world of 5. 4 felt claustrophobic, and not in a challenging street race sort of way.

@JayJ I agree generally, tho they did expand this latest Hot Wheels map to have some more off track exploration. I will say I did love careening through a field of Legos, the sound of them flying through the air. That put a smile on my face. But the map was a bit small.

While we're talking about the maps, any feelings on the day/night cycles duration? Like, for FH5, nighttime is gorgeous but lasts only a few minutes it feels. I wish it was twice as long. It's also the perfect nighttime lighting. FH3 was pitch black at night, I'd be straining my eyes to see the road lol

I much prefer 4's map to 5's and I don't like 5's progression system either. I'll stick to FH3 and 4 amd of anything they should give the series a break

I think both could be considered boring for different specific reasons. FH4 had biomes that were all too samey, and honestly they would've done better just creating a downscaled version of the lake and peak districts, with some elements of the Scottish borders and Highlands (this would still take some patching together), but I did at least feel challenged by the roads in FH4 - there was a lot of variation. Whilst FH5 does better with more variety in biomes and each area of the map looking unique, I instead find it boring to drive - there is far too much focus on high speed corners or right angled corners, there's very little linking of corner combinations also making overtaking difficult as there's only really one line through any corner, rather than the experimentation you get from multi-corner combinations.

To summarise, I find the actual driving boring in FH5, and the samey visuals in FH4 boring - albeit part of this is disappointment at the selection of locations as someone who lives in the Lake District - I mean really they just picked the honeypot sites, no Hardknott pass (or any other passes for that matter) was frustrating, and putting Ambleside next to Derwent water instead of settling for Keswick is borderline heresy

I just started playing it. It's boring. Just opened up a new Forza area thingy and all the events are super dispersed. Half the game feels like wasted time driving from one event to the other with little more than an xp board here or there in between. That's pretty much the series as a whole but it feels like a lot more of a slog this time.

All the dialogue is painful too. Pure cringe.

The recent trend of negative opinion on FH5 on the site is a little sus. Especially so long after its release.

But on the topic, I believe it doesn't flow naturally from one biome to the next. As others also mentioned lack of lively cities is a problem. The true problem of the game is however the disastrously bad voice acting and forced dialogue.

Put FH3 on the preferred vote imho. 4 was...fine. FH5 looks like FH3-the sequel. Still prefer the Aussie to anything.

@Krysus FH3 shouldn't be on the vote for a few reasons : It's a delisted title (I own all the Forza Horizon games so not an issue) and it's not Series X enhanced.

So some people haven't played it to compare it and it's unfair to compare games from different generations.

I adore the series, and FH5 is the best of them.

I still play both games regularly and don’t find either boring in the slightest. Like the Hot Wheels expansion and can’t help thinking the tech behind the game would lend itself to a brilliant Wipeout style racer on Series X.

I had more of a soft spot for the european aesthetics that fh4 had vs 5… 5 is more varied though. I loved 3’s map. So well thought out and executed. Between 4 and 5 i give them one thing, it was a radical change that was sure to shake up things. I had a tad more fun on 4, but 5 is still a blast and not boring at all 😊

I'll always have a soft spot for the map in Horizon 1

I have spent hundreds of hours playing Forza Horizon games and I have given up on FH5 within a couple of months after release as it was so boring.
FH3 was my favourite and FH4 was decent enough but it's like Playground didn't really try hard with FH5 as it felt rushed and soulless.